Scientists seek
a savior as a deadly
fungal pandemic
explodes through
vulnerable colonies
By Janet Raloff
Helping
bats
hold on
When Donald McAlpine and h i s c o l l e a g u e s b r o k e through a snow barricade at the entrance to a cave in
New Brunswick this March, bat carcasses
covered the floor. The biologists had been
conducting winter surveys throughout
the Canadian province for two years,
monitoring the health of hibernating
bats. As of early winter, all appeared
healthy. But now hosts of corpses lay
shrouded in a pale fungus.
A fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome (visible on the nose of this bat) is
killing bats in eastern North America.
